Police arrested a Florida mother for allegedly leaving her 3-year-old child unattended at an apartment complex while she was mere miles away undergoing a cosmetic procedure.
Concerned neighbors called police to the complex in Doral, Florida, on June 27 after seeing the boy wandering around unsupervised with nothing but a cellphone. One resident told authorities she called 911 after she found the child sleeping at her doorstep.
Bodycam footage captured the moments when police officers encountered the boy and their efforts to track down his parents.
“Hey, little buddy, what’s your name?” an officer asked the child. “Do you know where you live? Do you know where Papi and Mami are?”
Bodycam video shows the officers going door-to-door to several apartments to try to locate the child’s parents.
“Hello, by any chance, are you missing a kid?” an officer asked one person.
One resident who spoke with an officer said, “This is like the girl, the lady that left her daughter to go on vacation.”
“Yes,” a neighbor responded. The neighbors were referencing the case of a Houston mother who went on a cruise and left her two children home alone.
Viewers online were equally shocked by the mother’s behavior. “Un-F’ing’ Believable .. you better believe this wasn’t her 1st time doing this…”, wrote one person.
“WTAF?! 3 years old?! To go and get your face hacked up? Unbelievable,” wrote another.
Users on Reddit were just as brutal.
“People do stuff like this and then get legal slaps on the wrist, it’s insane. Anything could have happened to that poor child. He could have started a fire in the apartment, he could have been kidnapped when out roaming alone, or hit by a car. She should not have been able to post bond, and literally should be sterilized. I don’t care if that sounds harsh or unsympathetic to whatever the mother was going through mentally, I mean it.”
Police eventually found the boy’s mother, 25-year-old Jessica Renteria, down the street at a nearby surgery center.
According to an arrest report, Renteria told officers that she left the boy in a friend’s care for the day while she was at the center getting a procedure. However, the friend denied her claim, telling police, “he knows the defendant, but at no point in time was he told to take care of a juvenile.”
Renteria was taken into custody with bandages around her face, presumably from her procedure, and was charged with child neglect.
Authorities learned that Renteria, originally from DeLand, Florida, was staying at an Airbnb with her son in Doral.
Police discovered the boy was left alone for six hours after Renteria left the complex.
According to WSVN, surveillance footage showed Renteria left her vacation rental at 10 a.m. Three hours later, her son was captured walking outside. Police weren’t called to the complex until 4:15 p.m. that day.
Senteria was released from jail on a $1,000 bond. Her trial is set for Dec. 2.
